


Quite Settled

by inasentimentalmood



Category: Emma Approved
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-18
Updated: 2014-08-18
Packaged: 2018-02-13 15:09:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2155134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inasentimentalmood/pseuds/inasentimentalmood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harriet, at home recovering from a root canal, receives a surprise visitor! Only one guess who it is. Inspired by Harriet's suggestion in episode 69 that Martin is "not the kind of guy that gives up easily."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quite Settled

Harriet is curled up on her couch with her laptop in front of her, scrolling through Netflix to see if there are any newly added musicals. Her mouth is still pretty much numb from her recent root canal, though a bottle of ibuprofen is on her coffee table at the ready for when the pain decides to kick back in. She stretches her hands above her head and cracks her neck, considering what to do next since her Netflix options prove unpromising. She casts a glance at her ukulele, leaned up against the fireplace, but does not pick it up. She’s overdue to post a new song for her music club, but her emotions and affections have been shifting lately, and she’s waiting for things to settle before she can begin composing.

Harriet has been thinking about love a lot lately, and what it really means. Blogging about it had helped a little, but she still had questions. And she couldn’t seem to shake a certain someone from all her thoughts and wonderings.

The sound of the doorbell startles Harriet out of her reverie. “Oh!” she blurts while quickly getting up and closing her laptop. She hadn’t been expecting anyone. Perhaps Emma had sent over some matzo ball soup? Then again, it could just be her activist neighbor making the rounds again, trying to bully her into signing a petition to legalize the commercial sale of marijuana. Since her apartment door didn’t have a peephole, she’d just have to take her chances.

When she opens the door, he is leaning on the balcony with his back to her, looking out at the parking lot and the surrounding, seemingly-identical apartment complexes packed densely together. He turns around sharply.

“Martin!” she exclaims with a smile, forgetting that the left half of her face is currently swollen, her hair’s a mess and she’s in her sweats (from her high school track days). She’s so glad to see him that she forgets herself.

“Hey, Harriet,” he says somewhat timidly, taking his phone out of his pocket. His breath shudders out of him somewhat unevenly. “Uh, I was on…twitter, and saw that you weren’t feeling well. Alex gave me your address. I, uh, hope this isn’t, you know, _creepy_ or anything. I just…” he gulps, then clears his throat. This is the first time he’s talked to her without the pretense and crutch of fixing her computer and he feels even more out of his depth that usual, if that were possible. “Anyway—” he adds hurriedly, “I brought you some stuff.” He hands her a small light blue paper gift bag, which she takes. He obviously nervous, though Harriet is pretty much oblivious to this.  

“For me?” she says, with a thoughtful look. “Wow, I… Thank you!” His phone is now tucked back away and his hands are in his pockets to minimize fidgeting. Nonetheless he compulsively rocks back and forth on his heels.

“Do you want to come in?” she asks, still feeling completely un-self-conscious and simply wanting to spend more time with him. She opens the door wider and steps aside.

“Yeah, that’d be great,” he says with a small smile, walking in.

“I didn’t think I’d be seeing you again so soon,” Harriet jokes not unkindly as she shuts the door. “I’m glad you changed your mind about that rain check.”

He scratches his head. “Yeah well—”

“Oh!” she interjects suddenly. “I forgot to tell Emma I won’t be coming in to work today. Sorry,” she says with a cringe. “Do you want to sit?” She gestures to the couch. “It’ll just be a second.” She places the bag he brought her onto the coffee table and runs to her room to send Emma a quick text message. Meanwhile, Martin does his best to play it cool on the couch, which is a complete impossibility. He takes in his surroundings: framed photos of Harriet with college friends on the mantle; her ukulele atop some pads of staff paper; magazine clippings of different color schemes and decorations, unique place settings, and inventive appetizers, probably related to a work project.

“Sorry,” she says again as she rejoins him in the living room. She sits next to him and they are silent, a bit lost in their own thoughts.

“So—” they both blurt loudly at the same time. There is an awkward laugh on both sides followed by them each animatedly insisting that the other speak first to continue what they were going to say. Martin prevails in getting Harriet to talk.

“I was just going to say, I should look to see what you brought me!” she says brightly. It seems to her that Martin wants to be her friend, and she’s happy about that, though she can’t help but think that she might be just a little bit in love with him. No matter. She reaches for the bag.

“Oh, wow!” she says. “Chocolate pudding!” Very practical for her in her current condition. Totally a friend gift. He is glad that the gift is making her happy but all the same is a bit embarrassed by the intimacy of watching her reactions to the things he got her… because there’s more in the bag. “And Lipton soup! My mom used to make this for me when I was sick.” Also very useful but not necessarily romantic. Lastly she pulls out a copy of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, the animated version of the Broadway musical. “I was just looking for something to watch before you came over,” she says. Another great, very thoughtful gift. From a friend. She’s struck with a great idea. “Martin, this is so nice! You should stay to watch this with me!”

“I—I can’t,” he begins, and Harriet is crestfallen. Another rain check. Another indefinite goodbye. Oh, why had she ever rejected him! Martin, who had always believed in her from the very beginning; who treated her with such kindness despite her earlier refusal; who expressed such sincere interest in her life and passions; who didn’t bat an eye at her puffy face, sweats and ponytail; who made her feel so comfortable, so at ease, despite the consistent low-grade level of awkwardness in their every interaction.

So perhaps she had lost the chance at something romantic with B-Mart. She _had_ broken his heart, after all. And yet that bothersome yet undeniable inkling that she really did love him continued to eat away at her. Well, if she couldn’t be his girlfriend, she would be content to be his friend. She would fight for his friendship, would win back his trust so that he didn’t have to be so self-protective around her with all this anti-rain check business. She could be a good friend. Yes, it was quite possible.

Martin was himself questioning what was going on. He’s berating himself for saying “no” to her again. But he has to. He has to say "no" because he doesn’t want to fall into just a simply casual friendship with her. He can’t tell if she’s just being nice to him as a friend, or if her feelings have changed from last November. And he doesn’t quite get why, despite his resolution to remain kind yet polite and distant from Harriet, after seeing her on Monday he’d gone and done something truly crazy and was now sitting in her living room with a carefully composed care package between them. That kind of gesture goes way beyond being polite and distant, and he knows that. Heck, he blew off an IT job to come and make sure that she was okay. But that was nothing compared to the even crazier thing he’d gone and done, and this whole time he’s been debating whether to actually go through with it or not. Against all hope he decides to go for it—to do the craziest thing he's ever done. He has one more thing up his sleeve and it's time to reveal it. After all, there’s no use trying to be dignified before her; she surely must know that he’s nothing but a complete mess whenever she’s around. As if he could be any more obvious.

He turns to her. Here goes nothing. “Harriet, there’s one more thing that isn’t in the bag…” She looks at him quizzically.

“What is it?”

He reaches into his back pocket for a white, standard #10 envelope—unmarked and folded in half. He hands it her.

“You…really didn’t have to go to all this trouble,” she says, averting her gaze and breaking the envelope’s seal. She doesn’t dare to consider that maybe she was totally wrong about his regard for her being platonic and nothing less. She senses an epic “Martin” overture in the works and her heart is beating pretty quickly now.

First, she pulls out a paper crane. It looks like it’s made from the front cover of a Playbill booklet. She can see the signature black lettering and yellow background.

Martin clears his throat. “It, uh, took me a little longer than expected to get to a thousand,” he says, referring to the video he recorded for her so many months ago, where it all began.

“I—I can’t believe you actually did it,” Harriet says, in awe. “You folded a thousand paper cranes. It must have taken you forever! But…” she dares to ask (not wanting to appear dense but dying to hear his intentions clearly), “What’s your wish, then?” He doesn’t give her the direct answer she’s hoping for.

“There’s one more thing in the envelope…” he says, pointing to it and then wringing his hands. Here comes the crazy. There’s no turning back now.

Harriet laughs a little. There seems to be a lot of “one more things” with him, not that she’s complaining. She rifles around and pulls out two tickets—for _Matilda_ , a fanciful, heartwarming musical. It’s perfect. 

Upon closer inspection of the tickets, Harriet’s eyes go wide. “Oh. Oh my _gosh_! This is in New York! On Broadway!” 

Martin wipes his palms on his jeans, which are now considerably sweatier than he ever thought possible. “I—I know I’m going out on a huge limb here, Harriet, but I—I _really_ like you.” His voice cracks as he says ‘really.’ “I mean, my wish is… that you’ll say yes. To me,” he concludes with a bit of a stammer and a wince. Here he is again, putting himself out there for a potentially gigantic fall. It’s actually not so bad. He’s been here before.

Harriet has gone very still. Perhaps she has forgotten to breathe. She holds the tickets in her left hand and the crane in her right. She laughs nervously, just because she doesn’t know what else to do. Slowly, she places the objects of Martin’s grand overture down on the table. She laughs weirdly again as she takes both of Martin’s hands in her own. “Yes, of course!” she cries with a small happy sob at the end, as she throws herself into hugging him tightly, breathing a long sigh of relief.

Martin is stunned but wills himself to lift his arms to return Harriet’s embrace, awkwardly patting her upper back with this right hand. Up until now he’d been so used to his love being unrequited that he was struck by the strangeness of Harriet in his arms. It was a good strange. A marvelous strange. A kind of strange that he could get used to.

Harriet starts to gush now as she pulls away from him. “Oh, Martin, I am so sorry for _everything_ and I’d _never_ thought that you would ask me out again but I’m  so glad that you did. _Ow_!” She raises a hand to her cheek. Chalk it up to her irksome, defective teeth to bring her back to reality.

“Are you okay?” Bobby asks, concerned. In the work of a moment his body language has changed completely. His shoulders are squared toward her. He’s sitting up straighter. His nervous movement is markedly subdued. _She said yes._ He feels kind of invincible, actually. Perhaps cloud nine exists after all.

They spend the rest of the afternoon in each other’s company, as awkward-comfortable as can be between the two of them. Martin can’t believe his good luck and Harriet is positively blissful; they're both in a love struck daze, together. Now that they know where they stand with each other, they speak unreservedly, trying to catch up and make up for lost time. He tells her about his past poker tournaments and all of the ridiculous random prizes he’s won, shows her more photos from bird watching, and shares that he was in New York for a month establishing the IT systems for a new innovative non-profit (and that he’ll be returning regularly to check-in on things, and of course, to see a certain play with a very special certain someone). She tells him about her musical club, the new friends she’s made, the songs she’s written, her adventures in event coordination, and the fact that she’s thinking about getting a dog. He loves to hear her talk. He loves _her_.

Needless to say, Harriet’s musical writer’s block is, in one afternoon, decidedly demolished. In fact, she feels that she could fill up entire songbooks if need be. Yes, her heart is quite settled now.

**Author's Note:**

> In my headcannon, B-Mart is an IT consultant with Bing Lee's grassroots non-profit in New York. Martin and Harriet go to New York for a weekend to see Matilda, end up on a double date with Bing and Jane, and maybe, in time, move there, too! ;)


End file.
